How To Survive Femininty And Pink Perils
by Schnickledooger
Summary: A spoiled princess lives at Highton View Terrace and she's kidnapped T.K.! Now Matt must bravely engage her in battle to get his brother back. Oh, and also escape her torture chamber of cute frilliness. Pre-Season 01. Chibi-cuteness.


**Disclaimer: **I do not own **Digimon.** Toei Animation does.

**Summary: **A spoiled princess lives at Highton View Terrace and she's kidnapped T.K.! Now Matt must bravely engage her in battle to get his brother back. Oh, and also escape her torture chamber of cute frilliness. Pre-Season 01. Chibi-cuteness.

**How To Survive Femininity And Pink Perils**

Matt stood outside the door to apartment 210B, his fist poised in midair prepared to knock and gulped in fear. He had heard horror stories from the other kids about this place. How those who went in, came out changed, completely unrecognizable from whom they were before. Rumors had formed of an unfathomable evil, whispers of a faceless terror… and now his brother lay beyond those walls, undoubtedly undergoing unspeakable torment while he cowered outside.

It was his fault. He never should have left his little brother's side, not even for an instant, but his mother was cooking dinner and had sent him to the corner store for an ingredient she had forgotten. T.K. had been watching his favorite television program happy and content, so Matt left him figuring he would be safe without his protection for fifteen minutes.

When he had returned with the requested ingredient, his brother had vanished and his mother told him quite calmly that she had sent T.K. over to the Tachikawas with some curry as a greeting present for Highton View Terrace's newest residents.

Matt had balked. Actually, he had pitched an impressive fit of disbelief and panic and demanded that a rescue mission be launched immediately. His mother hadn't been amused by his antics at all and had given him a sound chewing out about how it wasn't polite to judge people until he had met them first and not to believe ridiculous made-up stories.

But she had glanced rather worriedly at the clock and sent him to retrieve his brother since T.K. hadn't returned for almost half an hour.

Which was why he happened to be standing outside the Tachikawa residence fighting an internal struggle with himself over whether to bravely face the enemy… or run to the police station across the street to report a kidnapping so they would storm over and break the door down with a spin kick.

Nah, he wouldn't be that lucky. Adults never listened to children, and he was sure the Tachikawas could lie their way out. It was up to him now. His brother's fate rested within his hands!

So he ignored the invisible sign over the door that read, _Abandon all hope, ye who enter here, _and pressed the buzzer before he could chicken out.

The door was opened to reveal a woman in a pink dress with frizzy light brown hair who blinked at the visitor on her doorstep in surprise before giving an elated shriek of delight and dragging him inside.

Matt very nearly fainted in fright. Here he was, a captive inside the enemy lair with one of its occupants doing a kind of ritual tribal dance around him no doubt in preparation for dumping him in the soup pot.

"Oh my, you're so cuuuuuuute!" the woman gushed, clasping her hands to her chest. "You must be that charming other little boy's brother! You look just like him!"

"T.K.? Where is he?" Matt demanded, standing as straight as he could to make himself look taller and trying his best to sound very intimidating.

It bounced off the woman like a rubber ball on the concrete.

"Oh, he's in Mimi's room playing right now! I'm so glad she's been able to make some friends! I was worried about her—the other children stopped coming here once we settled in. Why don't you go and say hello while I whip up some snacks? Everyone loves my snacks!" the woman chirped, leading him through the living room, past the kitchen, down the hallway until they came to a closed door with a flower wreath hanging on it and a sign, which said, "Mimi".

"Mimi! Oh, Mimi, sweetie, you have another friend here to see you! A handsome, young gentleman!" the woman called and Matt felt his face burning.

The woman gave him a simpering smile, patted him congenially on the head like a puppy, and twirled off back to wards the kitchen humming off-key, and Matt was left feeling rather dazed like he'd just narrowly escaped from the wringer.

"Matt!" T.K. exclaimed excitedly as he opened the door and saw his older brother standing there. "This is great! Now you can play too!"

Matt stared at his brother who didn't appear in the least bit in pain or torment and was grinning cheekily at him, dressed up in a knight's costume, complete with a plastic breastplate, helmet, shield and sword.

"Who's out there, T.K.?" inquired a shrill, high-pitched voice from within the room.

"It's my brother, Matt!" T.K. replied, grabbing him by the hand and tugging him over the door's threshold.

Matt found himself suddenly transported into another world altogether. The room practically screamed: _beware, a girl lives here._ The walls were a pale cherry-blossom color and the carpet was a shocking shade of magenta. There were dozens of stuffed animals and dolls stacked in multiple piles all over. There was a dresser that had jewelry boxes overflowing and a mirror decorated with countless sparkly stickers. Pictures hung on the wall held in red heart-shaped frames. The window was draped in lace curtains and there, on a mint-green bedspread sat a girl with long, curly brown hair in a puffy, pink dress with a tiara perched regally on her head, holding a paper fan in her left hand.

"What do you want?" the girl asked in haughty manner, leveling him with a very displeased _we are not amused_ look.

"I-I," Matt croaked, losing his voice. He didn't interact with girls very much. He had a brother, not a sister. The closest female he knew was his mother and she certainly didn't act like the woman who had met him at the door. He really had no idea of what to say or how to act around them.

"I came to take my brother home," he finally managed to blurt out.

"Well, you can't," the girl stated, snapping her fan shut with angry _shft_-ing soundand pointing it at him like a scepter. "T.K. is in my service now. You can't just deprive a princess of her knight! Not unless you're a villain! And if you are, you will have your head chopped off for your disrespect and ill manners!"

Matt gaped at her, all the horror stories about the Tachikawa residence suddenly making sense. He understood now. This girl was royalty, a princess! The woman who answered the door must be one of her servants. And those other kids who had come here before him must have displeased her and she had condemned them to their doom… or brain-washed them since T.K. didn't seem to overly-concerned that his brother's life was on the line.

"Isn't she cute?" he said to Matt, looking absolutely enthralled by her.

It sparked a jealous rage in Matt. His brother should look up to him and no one else!

"He's _my_ brother, not yours!" he declared hotly, balling his hands into fists at his side.

"Well, he's _my_ knight!" the princess shot back. "And he hasn't rescued me from the evil dragon yet so he can't leave!"

"T.K.'s too little to fight a dragon!" he yelled, before asking tentatively, "What dragon?"

"The invisible one in my closet!" the princess stated, rolling her eyes as if that answer was obvious.

"I'm not too little!" T.K. protested scowling at his brother. "I can so _too_ fight a dragon! Watch!"

T.K. stomped resolutely over to where the princess' closet was and bravely reached for the handle to pull it open with a determined expression. Matt dashed forward and yanked his brother back a safe distance.

"_Maaaaaaaatt_, _lemme goooooo!!!" _T.K. howled, squirming in his arms.

"What are you doing?! You're ruining everything!" the princess shrieked, leaping to her feet on the bed.

"_You_ go fight the dragon! You're older and it's in_ your_ room anyway!" Matt told her, dragging his kicking and shouting little brother towards the door.

"I'm the princess!" she screeched, looking positively furious. "Princesses don't fight dragons! It's common fairy-tale rules!"

"You're not a princess!" Matt cried. "Princesses are kind and nice and helpful and don't yell at people! You're just a… a… spoiled little brat!"

The princess gave a scream of outrage and chucked her fan at him where the wooden part collided painfully with his skull leaving a red mark.

"Oh, kids!" sang the frizzy-haired woman stepping into the doorway right behind the two brothers and blocking their escape route. In her hands there was a tray of food. "I made snacks for you all! I hope you enjoy it—it's my signature dish I just made up!"

They were trapped. All the princess had to do now was tattle to her servant about how her subjects were rude to her and they would be tossed into the closet with the dragon.

The princess' eyes glinted oddly… then she surprised Matt by breaking into a smile—a real pretty one too—and said in voice quite unlike the one she had been using moments before, this one soft and pleasant, "Thank you, Mama! We were just about to have a tea party! Could you put it there?"

She pointed to a small table where a tea-set had been laid out and four chairs (one of which had gigantic teddy-bear sitting in it already) had been set up.

"Of course, sweetie!" the servant, her own mother—Matt was shocked, but not particularly surprised to learn—said, placing the tray down and beaming at them. "I'm so glad you three are getting along so well!"

The woman shut the door behind her on the way out giggling to herself something about "her daughter attracting all the cute boys to the house… inherited genes."

Matt rubbed his sore forehead and glared at the princess who was smirking at him with her hands on hips.

"I understand," she said, sitting down in one of the chairs in front of the small table. "You're jealous."

"What?" Matt asked, wondering if she had realized he didn't want T.K. to play with her.

"You're jealous," she repeated, and now she sounded very sincere. "You want to play with me too."

"_What?" _Matt said.

"I'm sorry, that was selfish of me," the princess said, nodding to herself as she thought. "It's just you interrupted the story right before the exciting part happened and I was mad. But I see now: T.K. is my knight and you can be the prince!"

"WHAT?!" Matt exclaimed.

"Yes, now the story will be even better!" the princess cried happily as she imagined. "T.K. battles the dragon so the prince can slip by unnoticed and find the fair maiden sleeping on the bed where he awakens her with true love's kiss!"

Matt felt a wave of fear wash over him as the princess ran an appraising eye over him. It reminded him of that time where he had a close encounter with a she-demon in the park who wanted to eat him. He remembered why exactly females were so scary then.

"Yes, then they get married and live happily ever after!" the princess squealed giddily.

Enough was enough. Matt grabbed at the doorknob behind him, pulled it open and hauled his brother down the hallway, shredding pieces of his knight costume as they went.

"Oh, are you leaving so soon?" Mrs. Tachikawa asked, looking very sad when they reached the living room. "Well, give your mother this as a thank you present for the curry and come back and visit us again soon!"

Matt snatched the covered dish out of the woman's hands and made a beeline for the door… where before he could safely escape the disguised torture chamber, it swung open and a dark-haired man in sunglasses stepped in, looking very dangerous.

One of the princess' lackeys no doubt. She'd called for reinforcements. They would end up serving her for all eternity.

"Honey!" squealed Mrs. Tachikawa, rushing past him and flinging her arms around the man's neck. "How was your day, snookums?"

"So tiring, I looked forward all day to coming home to you, dear," the man said wrapping his arms around her waist. "But since when did we suddenly acquire two more kids? Have you been keeping secrets from me?"

"Oh, you shameless man!" Mrs. Tachikawa giggled, laying her head under the crook of her husband's neck. "You shouldn't talk like that in front of children!"

"Daddy!" shrieked the princess, descending from her royal chambers, flinging herself on his back in a pink blur. "You're home! Did you bring me presents?"

"My baby girl doesn't care about her father at all, is that it?" the man asked, pretending to be very hurt, before pulling a pink cowgirl hat out of one of his bags. "Ooh, how did this get in here?"

The princess gave a little scream of delight and put it on her head, completely forgetting the tiara she already wore.

"Oh, thank you, Daddy!" she exclaimed, covering his cheek with kisses.

"You spoil her too much, honey!" Mrs. Tachikawa said, but she soon joined in the jubilation when her husband presented her with a pearl necklace, bowling him over with a breath-taking hug and knocking all three of them to the floor where they lay in a dog-pile laughing.

So when Matt finally left the Tachikawa residence with his brother, no one noticed and it no longer felt like such an urgent escape.

When they returned home it was so late that dinner had been delayed due to their absence. Matt had explained Mrs. Tachikawa had detained them and gave his mother her covered dish, which seemed to appease some of her anger. When their father came back from work, he flung his coat and tie over one of the living room chairs and went to take a shower as a tactical retreat from his wife's accusations that he was sloppy. And when he brought a newspaper to read at the table while supper was served, Matt tried his best to ignore his mother's disgusted expression and to block his mind from imagining a different world where his family was happy just being together.

Maybe the reason so many rumors about the Tachikawas had sprung up and people feared them, was not because they were weird but because they possessed a bond that others did not understand because they did not have it.

So when his dad took a bite of Mrs. Tachikawa's shrimp-fried rice with whipped cream and strawberries without really looking at it, and gagged as a reflex in utter revulsion that he hacked one of the strawberries clear across the table into his wife's cup of coffee, instead of getting mad, she laughed so hard tears leaked out of her eyes and she fell out of her chair, causing everyone to erupt into a fit of laughter, Matt felt the lump in his throat go down and a warm glow ignite his chest.

Then again, maybe in time, they would finally be able to grasp it. Perhaps meeting the princess had helped him more than he knew.

**The End**

**A/N: **Ah, whew! This fic is a companion piece in the **How To Survive** series I have started about Matt and his first meeting of all the Digidestined kids when they still lived at Highton View Terrace. All fics are going to be from his viewpoint and characters often fall victim as to how he sees them. So far I have two others, **How To Survive An Animal Attack** and **How To Survive A Close Encounter. **I'll leave it up to you to read those and find out who they're about^^

Fun fact: I had to go back and watch Ep.35 just to see how the Tachikawas interacted with each other. Boy, are they fun to write! I think Mrs. Tachikawa could give Tai's mom a run for her money with her strange cooking! If you think Mimi was ditzy in Season 01, her mom is a thousand-times more sappy. She made me laugh—she's so cool! And Mimi's room is just how I described it. They showed a good portion of it on the ep. I know technically she wasn't living at Highton View Terrace in that episode, but I figured she'd probably re-do her room the same way it was before. Yes, I suppose there are some similarities in this fic as well as the Episode "Princess Karaoke" where Mimi is dressed up and acting the part of a princess. You have to remember, before she got her crest to glow, she was often selfish and whined and complained a lot in the first season. This is before she matured guys. She probably did like playing dress-up and there had to be some phase she went through before she got sucked into the cowgirl theme. And yes, I know the ending was little angsty. I just wanted everyone to see the difference between Mimi's family and Matt's and how it must have affected their character growth.

Well, I hope you enjoyed reading this! I suppose if you squint, you might see signs of Mimato, but I merely intended it as a friendship fic or at least how their first meeting might have gone. It seems like it's implied in Digimon the Movie that the kids all knew each other but obviously in the anime, they had forgotten their childhood friends by the time they went to camp—they didn't even remember Greymon and Parrotmon fighting.

I'd love to hear your favorite lines or scenes. It'd make my day! Remember, reviews are the only form of payment a fanfic author gets so reward them well! Now, I'm off to write the next victim—er, character's story! Haha!^^


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